France and gardening

Come into the jardin, Maude

A new business sprouts up in France

ALONGSIDE the out-of-town hypermarkets that ring French towns, a new species is spreading like ivy across the landscape: the suburban garden-centre. Offering everything from sturdy perennials to hardwood gazebos and citronella flares, brands such as Truffaut, Jardiland and Gamm Vert have taken root. Jardiland now has 106 centres across France, an increase of 33% since 2000. Gamm Vert has expanded its retail space by 20% since 2001. The French have traditionally been more passionate about trimming meat than privet hedges. So what is going on?

Gardening certainly seems to be blooming. Between 1999 and 2004, France's garden-centre market grew by 17%, to nearly €6 billion ($7.4 billion), says Promojardin, which promotes the activity. And the French are not just buying fairy lights for the terrace: the biggest category sold is outdoor plants.

What could explain this new urge? Despite Voltaire's famous maxim that “il faut cultiver notre jardin,” gardening has never been a national sport in France, as it is in England. Newspapers do not devote pages to compost advice; there are no prime-time television garden shows promising to change your life with some decking and a water feature. Gardening in France has traditionally been either practical—the cultivation of vegetables—or a matter for the elite, its taste guided by the 17th-century formalism of André le Nôtre, who laid out the gardens at Versailles.

One explanation is suburbanisation. Promojardin says the number of French households with a garden had reached 61% by last year. Many others have at least a balcony or window box. Another factor could be that gardening, like organic food, has belatedly arrived as part of a broader ecological movement. “The return to nature has become fashionable,” says Bérangère Lamboley, marketing head at Gamm Vert. The new buzzword at garden centres is ludique, or playful: gardening is fun. Truffaut's marketing stresses that gardening is therapeutic. “When you look after your plants, your worries disappear.”

But perhaps there is another explanation. The expansion of garden-centres, says one retail-property investor, dates from 2000, when the former Socialist government brought in the 35-hour working week. With fewer hours in the office, and less money in their pockets, the French have taken to gardening as they have to DIY: as an inexpensive way to fill all that extra free time.